CAMPAIGNERS have called for the final decision on the York Central access road to be taken by all members of City of York Council.

The authority’s executive is due to decide on November 15 which of three possible routes should be chosen for the road into the York Central site, where up to 1,500 new homes and 650,000 square feet of offices are planned.

A report will reveal next week which is the York Central Partnership’s preferred option from two possible routes from Water End and one from Holgate Road.

The latter option would drive the road straight through the Holgate community garden and was strongly opposed during a recent public consultation.

Now the York Central Action Group has claimed in a letter to the partnership that the entire council should be allowed to vote - rather than just the executive alone - to ‘ensure that people living in the regions most affected by the development have some form of democratic representation.’

It said: “Not one of the eight councillors making up the executive, who have the final say over which access route is chosen, represent wards in central York.

“It is clear that whichever road option is selected, the residents in the central western region of York will bear disproportionate impact for the benefit of the wider city.

“It is essential that these people feel that they have some tangible democratic representation beyond this poorly conducted consultation.”

It claimed people had been left feeling compelled to choose between a set of ‘least bad’ options for their own communities, because this was their only chance to comment, and all other access options had been ruled out without public consultation.

But council leader David Carr has responded to the letter by saying that while the decision would be ‘taken in the most open way possible, there are no plans to refer this to full council.’

He said the council ‘hugely values’ the responses received from residents to the consultation but some options had had to be ruled out on engineering or other grounds, and it would have been irresponsible to present unworkable proposals for consultation.

“I want to thank the many residents who responded with their views,” he said.

“We are listening to them and I want to reassure people the decision will be taken in the most open way possible.”